
‘Eighteen & Cloudy’ is the name of my second YouTube channel, named for my favourite conditions to go for a photo walk (Celsius, obviously!) I started this channel in the spring of 2021 to have a space to share silent vlogs, ASMR videos, vegan cooking and baking videos, and videos about my hobbies. I have created playlists to group together the different series I create videos for, so either have a browse below or click through from any individual video to watch on YouTube direct.
British Microseasons
Reimagining the ancient Japanese concept of the “microseason” for the British climate and an urban environment. Seasonal observations from nature walks in and around Birmingham.
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A Shower of Beech Nuts | 3rd - 7th August 2022 | British Microseasons | No.16
Join me for a walk in my secret bluebell woods. The beech nuts are falling at the moment, and a walk beneath the trees is punctuated by the soft thud of the empty shells hitting the woodland floor.
In ancient Japan, the calendar year was divided up into 72 “microseasons” adapted for Japan from the Chinese calendar. These mini seasons, each 4 to 6 days long, describe the blooming of a plant, the migration of birds, weather patterns and the ebb and flow of time from the perspective of the physical environment.
I love this way of seeing the world, I think it is really beautiful. I love watching the seasons change around me and so, inspired by the ancient Japanese concept of microseasons, I have decided to start my own microseasons project. Based in Birmingham, a post-industrial city in England, I am documenting the seasons as they come and go around me in the city. From walks in the woods, to watching ducklings learn to swim on the lakes and canals, to flowers blooming and fading, the first frosts, the mist and fog of November, to rebirth in the spring.
I have created a playlist here on YouTube so if you would like to see more of my microseasons project, click through to my channel bio to find the playlist, and don’t forget to subscribe so that you can follow along as I make and share the videos here on my channel. -
Earth is Dry, Air is Humid | 29th July - 2nd August 2022 | British Microseasons | No.15
Join us for a walk at Moseley Bog in South Birmingham for the next video in my microseasons project. Moseley Bog is a nature reserve and part of Birmingham's Tolkien Trail. The Tolkien Trail celebrates fantasy author JRR Tolkien's connection to the city of Birmingham and the many places which inspired and shaped his writing of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
To find out more about Tolkien's link to Birmingham and the Tolkien Trail you can visit Birmingham City Council's website here:
https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/downloads/file/9230/birmingham_tolkien_trail
In ancient Japan, the calendar year was divided up into 72 “microseasons” adapted for Japan from the Chinese calendar. These mini seasons, each 4 to 6 days long, describe the blooming of a plant, the migration of birds, weather patterns and the ebb and flow of time from the perspective of the physical environment.
I love this way of seeing the world, I think it is really beautiful. I love watching the seasons change around me and so, inspired by the ancient Japanese concept of microseasons, I have decided to start my own microseasons project. Based in Birmingham, a post-industrial city in England, I am documenting the seasons as they come and go around me in the city. From walks in the woods, to watching ducklings learn to swim on the lakes and canals, to flowers blooming and fading, the first frosts, the mist and fog of November, to rebirth in the spring.
I have created a playlist here on YouTube so if you would like to see more of my microseasons project, click through to my channel bio to find the playlist, and don’t forget to subscribe so that you can follow along as I make and share the videos here on my channel.
The Quiet Things | Vlogs
In celebration of the quiet moments in everyday life and life’s simple and seasonal pleasures.
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Vegan Summer Evening Meals | How to Eat Seasonally | Part 2 | Recipe Ideas
This is the second part of my two part series on vegan summer evening meals. In the first part I shared what we typically buy at the vegetable market during the spring and summer months. I have filmed a week's worth of home cooked evening meals.
These meals are the sort of thing that we cook and eat during the week, including quick meals we throw together when we're short on time or motivation. Some of them take longer to prepare than others, but they are all quite easy and straightforward things to make.
For transparency, the thumbnail for this video is from the following week's market shop, but contains very similar vegetables to what I cooked with this week with the addition of sweetcorn, courgettes and pears.
Watch the first part for Saturday to Monday's meals here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWLrhTO266o
Here are some video chapters for part two:
00:45 Boiled new potatoes with mint, hummus, and green beans with garlic.
01:46 Baked aubergines with a yoghurt, tahini, garlic and pomegranate sauce, served with pan fried green beans and oven baked crispy tofu.
05:16 Bulgur salad with pan fried fennel. Served with a chickpea, orange and griddled aubergine salad.
13:44 Roast vegetables with beetroot fritters, served with hummus. -
Vegan Summer Evening Meals | What I Eat in a Week | Part 1 | Creative, Affordable and Seasonal Meals
This week I filmed myself unpacking the market shop to show you what we typically buy at the market during the summer months, and the sort of meals that we cook with the produce.
Every Saturday my husband and I visit our city's outdoor vegetable market to buy produce for the week. Our market is not a gentrified or expensive farmer's market, but rather an honest inner city market where local people can buy fruit and vegetables in bulk at very affordable prices. Many of the vendors sell vegetables in plastic bowls for £1 each. The vegetables are often supermarket seconds, or wonky vegetables that wouldn't sell in a supermarket. There are also vendors who set up their stalls like traditional greengrocers, selling high quality but affordable produce by the pound (weight).
It's common to be able to find three pomegranates or three aubergines for £1, big bowls of green beans, big bunches of herbs for 80p, and all sorts of seasonal fruits at very affordable prices at this market. If you don't have a wholesale market in walking distance of your home, similar prices can be found through using a subscription service for 'wonky' or 'B grade' vegetables. Buying produce like this requires you to learn how to be creative and flexible in the kitchen, but it's great fun and a very affordable and environmentally friendly way to cook and eat.
My husband and I have been vegan since 2005 and over the years we have taught ourselves how to create nutritionally balanced, seasonal and affordable meals, using whatever ingredients are available to us in the local market. This week I bought some beetroot including the leaves, as well as a very large batch of green beans. I show you how I use up gluts of vegetables, including beetroot leaves which many people discard.
It's a no talking video, with lots of ASMR cooking sounds to help you relax. I hope that you enjoy it, and perhaps discover some new ideas for your own vegan summer evening meals.
Here are some video chapters for you:
Unloading the shopping bags to show you what I bought at the vegetable market this week: 00:36
Rice noodles, crispy tofu, and stir fried beetroot leaves with miso and lemon: 03:28
Beetroot hummus, stir fried green beans with garlic, tabbouleh, and French bread: 07:08
Mung bean pancakes, inspired by the traditional Korean dish 'bindaetteok', with a filling made with stir fried beetroot leaves and mushrooms, flavoured with miso and red pepper paste (gochujang): 17:12
The Outdoor Type | Adventures
In celebration of spending time outdoors in nature, getting your hands dirty, camping, foraging for food, and getting a little bit wet and muddy from time to time.
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Cambridge Botanic Garden in the Spring | Quiet Vlog
Join me for a walk around Cambridge University Botanic Garden in Cambridge, England. Last week, my husband and I made a daytrip to Cambridge to visit the botanic garden. The fruit trees are in blossom and we have been enjoying some lovely warm weather recently. We made a picnic and ate lunch beneath the redwoods before exploring the glasshouses and mature trees throughout the grounds of the botanic garden.
We were lucky enough to witness the university's "Strongylodon Macrobotrys" in full bloom! -
Cornwall in October | Autumn Camping Trip | Atlantic Coast | Cliff Walks | Staying in a YHA Land Pod
We went camping! This was our first overnight trip together since we visited Cumbria in October 2019, so it felt extra special. We stayed in a "Land Pod" (a camping hut) at YHA Penzance and went for lots of walks up on the cliffs looking out over the Atlantic Ocean.
The weather was dry but windy, and it was lovely to see the ocean and spend lots of time outdoors. I've really missed camping, and I've really missed the coast, so it was lovely to be able to have this opportunity to spend some time in one of England's most beautiful counties.
My work in other places:
https://www.stephaniegarstin.co.uk
This video was not sponsored by YHA, we paid for our accommodation ourselves. We often stay with YHA and have camped with them as well as stayed in their hostels many times. YHA properties are very well situated across England and Wales and really good places to stay if you intend to spend a lot of time outdoors and just want simple, clean, comfortable self-catered accommodation. They're family friendly, but not just for families.
Vegan Cooking and Baking
Peaceful & relaxing vegan baking and cooking videos featuring either no music or a minimalist, classical soundtrack, and lots of lovely natural sounds for those of you who love ASMR.
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How to Make Damson (Plum) Sorbet | ASMR | No Talking | West Midlands Community Orchard | Foraging
Join me in the kitchen as I make damson sorbet with damsons I foraged locally. It's an ASMR video, no talking, and no music, I hope you find it relaxing. The recipe is at the bottom of this box.
I recently picked some damsons in the community orchard which runs alongside the canal from Wolverhampton in the Black Country, through Birmingham, and down as far as Worcester. The community orchard is a project which I am really excited about, and which has seen hundreds of fruit trees planted alongside the canal and in what are known as "pocket orchards" in fields and meadows alongside the canal network. This is the first year that the damson yield has been really good, and I was so excited to forage some damsons.
Damsons are really common in the UK, but if you can't find them where you live, you can follow the same recipe with other stone fruits. You could make sorbet with apricots, peaches, nectarines, plums, or any other stone or soft fruit that you can think of. Sweeter fruits and very ripe fruits need less sugar than unripe or bitter fruits, but the recipe is very flexible and it's hard to go wrong.
My recipe for damson sorbet:
200g plain white sugar
300ml water
500g damsons (with the stones in)
Place the whole fruit, sugar and water in a pan and cook for ten minutes on a low heat. Once the damsons or plums have softened and fallen apart, remove from the heat and press the mixture through a fine sieve to remove the skins and stones.
Leave the fruit and syrup mixture to cool to room temperature. You can speed this process up by placing the bowl containing your fruit mixture in a second bowl containing cold water or ice cubes. Place the fruit mixture in the fridge for 1 hour once it has reached room temperature.
Transfer the fruit mixture to an insulated freezer bowl, icecream machine, or place it in a second bowl which is filled with ice cubes. Whisk the fruit mixture every 30 minutes until it has reached a soft serve consistency. This will take 2 hours if you are using an insulated freezer bowl designed for an icecream machine, or longer if you are just using a regular container in your freezer. Whisking is essential, because it breaks up the ice crystals and helps create a creamy texture for your sorbet or icecream.
The sorbet can be served immediately once it has reached a soft serve consistency, or transferred from the freezer bowl to a regular container and kept in the freezer until you would like to serve it. If you are using an insulated bowl designed for an icecream machine, don't leave the mixture in the bowl in the freezer overnight, because it will harden to a consistency which is almost impossible to scoop. This is why I transferred my sorbet from the insulated bowl to a plain container before placing it back in the freezer to set.
I bought an insulated freezer bowl rather than an icecream machine, as an icecream machine is bulky and I don't have space for it in my kitchen cabinets. The insulated bowl has a smaller footprint and can be kept in the freezer at all times, whereas an electric icecream machine with a plug needs to be kept in a cabinet or on the counter. Since I already have a whisk, I didn't see the point of buying a full icecream machine and just bought an insulated bowl. Many brands of icecream machine have the option to buy a secondary or replacement bowl. You don't need to buy the actual machine if you don't want or need to! Electric appliances can go wrong, but an insulated bowl will last a lifetime. -
Sourdough Simit | Making Twisted Turkish Bagels | No Talking | No Music | ASMR | Vegan Baking
Today I am making simit. Simit are known as Turkish bagels in the USA, as they originated in the Ottoman and Byzantine empires. They are very popular throughout Turkey and the Middle East. Simit are like bagels, but the dough is dipped in a bowl of diluted molasses before baking, whereas bagels are boiled before baking. Simit are twisted, whereas bagels are made from a smooth loop. Both bagels and simit are dipped in sesame seeds.
Arts & Crafts | Vegan and Sustainable
Join me as I try my hand at vegan and sustainable arts and crafts such as soapmaking, bookbinding, pottery, paper making, flower pressing, dyeing fabric with food waste, and lots of other projects. I am an ethical vegan for animal welfare reasons, but I occasionally use secondhand or waste materials of animal origin rather than virgin synthetic or plastic based alternatives. This is for environmental reasons and part of a personal balancing act to reduce my impact and harm to animals and environment alike.
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Making Marseille Soap | Elderflower and Green Clay | Cold Process | 70% Olive Oil | 30% Coconut Oil
Today I am making cold process soap inspired by the traditional recipe for Marseille soap. Marseille soap, made in the southern French city since the 17th century, is a hard soap made with vegetable oil. It typically contains 72% olive oil, and the remainder of the soap is made with coconut oil and palm oil. The soap is traditionally coloured with clay but unperfumed, and it is used for many different purposes including for washing dishes and laundry.
The soap I am making in this video contains 70% olive and 30% coconut oil as I wanted to make sure that it was free from palm oil for environmental reasons. I was inspired by Marseille soap and wanted to create a soap which is as similar as possible to the traditional French soap. I have coloured my soap with French green clay, and in place of the water content I chose to use an elderflower infusion.
The recipe, created with the help of a lye checker, is as follows:
125g lye (sodium hydroxide)
285g elderflower infusion OR plain water
630g ordinary supermarket value olive oil (not EV or organic)
270g coconut oil
Superfat content: 5%
Safety warning:
Before making cold process soap for the first time, make sure that you are aware of best practice for handling lye. Rubber gloves and long sleeves are essential to prevent caustic burns to your skin.
ALWAYS add the lye to the water and NEVER the other way around. Add the lye slowly, and make sure to stir the mixture slowly until it has fully dissolved.
ALWAYS check your recipe against a lye calculator to ensure that the recipe will produce soap which has a skin safe pH value. -
How to Make a Hair Scarf | Crafting with Recycled Kimono Silk | Sustainable Sewing | Beginner Sewing
Today I am sharing a sustainable sewing project and making a hair scarf with recycled fabric. The fabric I am using is a silk remnant that I bought on eBay, which was originally part of someone's kimono. The fabric I used was approximately 150cm long and 20cm wide and it is long enough to wrap around my head twice and tie the ends together comfortably. If you would like to make a hair scarf with fabric remnants, search for a long rectangular strip of fabric of similar dimensions.
This sewing project is a brilliant way to use up fabric scraps and is beginner friendly, too.